Some philosophers say that our life is meaningless because it has a prescribed end. This is a strange assertion: is a movie rendered meaningless because of its finiteness? Some things acquire a meaning precisely because they are finite: consider academic studies, for instance. It would seem that meaningfulness does not depend upon matters temporary. We all share the belief that we derive meaning from external sources. Something bigger than us - and outside us - …showed first 75 words of 1134 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1134 total…is an efficient (inner-sourced) rating mechanism. To this eminently and impeccably workable criterion, we usually attach another, external, one (ethical and moral, for instance). The inner criterion is really ours and is a credible and reliable judge of real and relevant preferences. The external criterion is nothing but a defence mechanism embedded in us by an external source of meaning. It comes to defend the external source from the inevitable discovery that it is meaningless.